Interaction with aromatic π systems has become recognized as an important mode of stabilization of carbocation intermediates in biological reactions. To gain insight into such carbocation-π interactions, we have undertaken a study of...

Despite the recent FDA approval of the potentiator drug Kalydeco for treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF), only a small (3-5%) portion of patients benefit from this drug. Other functional classes of drugs including correctors are under clinical...

In this thesis, we characterize and enumerate the permutations which are realized by the orbits of signed shifts, a family of discrete dynamical systems on words. The permutations, which are called patterns of the signed shifts, are given by the...

The great strength of the C-F bond has enabled fluorocarbons to find many industrial and domestic applications, and makes C-F activation a chemical and technical challenge akin to that of C-H bond activation in hydrocarbons. In our mission to...

The proliferation of mobile devices and other consumer products has greatly expanded the market for CMOS image sensors. This in turn has promoted a trend of continued improvement in image sensor performance, as companies seek to gain an advantage...

This research attempts to combine known methodology with new chemistry towards the preparation of extended polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). The generation and Diels-Alder trapping of 1,7- and 2,6-naphthalene bisarynes was attempted for the...

Autonomous damage detection in engineering structures is critically important as the demands placed upon those structures are increased. It has been well established that damage detection can be done through monitoring the modal frequencies of the...

The furanosteroids are an important class of natural products that have been found to effectively inhibit various biologically important enzymes. These enzymes include the phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) family and the polo-like kinase (PLK1)...

Endothelial cell migration is an important element of a number of biological processes, including angiogenesis. The fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) are a family of angiogenic heparan-binding proteins that potently induce endothelial migration....

Results from a new apparatus that records high resolution FTIR spectra in parahydrogen under 3 K are reported. A modified two-stage closed cycle refrigeration system cools a novel chamber into which gaseous helium can be condensed. The sample...

Most of the cells that die during the development of a C. elegans hermaphrodite do so within 30 min after being generated. In these cells, the pro-caspase proCED-3 is inherited from progenitors and the transcriptional upregulation of the BH3-only...

In utero exposure to maternal malnutrition is associated with increase offspring susceptibility to cardiometabolic and neuropsychiatric disease. Epigenetic mechanisms mediate, at least in part, fetal adaptations to adverse in utero environments...

This thesis deals with geometric representations of ordered sets. In a geometric representation, each element of the ordered set is assigned a geometric object, with two elements incomparable in the ordered set if and only if the corresponding...

Prostacyclin (PGI 2 ) is a major product of COX-2 catalyzed metabolism of arachidonic acid in the endothelium and has been shown to be atheroprotective. PGI 2 signals though its G-coupled protein receptor (GPCR) the human Prostacyclin receptor...

Multimodality imaging is becoming the standard of care for research and clinical studies. Such an approach is able to provide complementary information which can detect and characterize tumors. Advancing instrumentation for diffuse near-infrared...

Violent video games are immensely popular among children and adults, making it crucial to understand how these games affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of those who play them. The present research proposed an account by which video game...

Prostate cancer (PCa) recurrences are often predicted by assessing the status of surgical margins (SM) – positive surgical margins (PSM) increase the chances of biochemical recurrence by 2-4 times which may lead to PCa recurrence. At present,...

Arrestins are regulatory proteins that participate in the termination of G protein-mediated signal transduction. The major arrestin in the Drosophila visual system, Arrestin 2 (Arr2), has been demonstrated to be essential for the termination of the...

An important mode of stabilization of cations in biochemical reactions is interaction with the π systems-of aromatic residues. As part of an investigation of the interaction of carbocations with aromatic π systems, a study of various model...